Galerie Peter Herrmann

Ancient Art from Africa - Ife

Alone amongst the Ife heads, this beautiful specimen opens his lips, as though he were talking. His facial characteristics seem soft and relaxed, and his entire face is so smoothly and naturally rendered that an uncommon dynamism complements his illustrious expression. The usually so common holes around the mouth and on the cheeks are nowhere to be found; indeed the only holes to be found are located on the neck, made specifically so that the head could be attached to a wooden body. Like the absence of holes, the rendering of the richly-decorated, clamshell-topped headdress is also unique, and every detail on the head is expressed in depth.

Cp.:
Frank WILLETT: Ife. Metropole afrikanischer Kunst, Bergisch Gladbach 1967, S. 36.
Barbara PLANKENSTEINER (Hg.): Benin. Könige und Rituale. Höfische Kunst aus Nigeria, Wien 2007, S. 272